1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope apparatus.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-241311, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, known endoscopes include direct-view endoscope which can observe along the direction of the central axis of an insertion portion and side-view endoscopes which can observe around the circumferential direction of the insertion portion.
In side-view endoscopes, various configurations have been proposed for deflecting and emitting light guided along the central axis of the insertion portion to the tip thereof, as well as for deflecting reflected light that is incident from the circumferential direction along the central axis direction (for example, see Japanese Examined Patent Application, Publication No. SHO-62-3405).